| Transitions Optical SolFX Visors for Bell Helmets | | Print | |
| Written by Kenn Stamp | |
| Saturday, 30 October 2010 15:05 | |
 (Special thanks to Yuri "Paper" Headski for agreeing to model for us)  You’re out riding around in the bright sunlight, wearing your dark tinted
Well if you are one of the smart people who took our advice and bought a new Bell Star or Vortex helmet, there’s a solution that will ensure this never happens again; Transitions Optical SolFX photochromic visors for Bell Helmets. If you didn’t take our advice and buy a Bell helmet, well, none of this applies to you until you buy one. We first heard about the visor when Bell Helmets told us that they would give one to any moto-journo that showed-up at the 2010 MotoGP race at Laguna Seca. We didn’t attend the race due to Dorna’s stupid, asinine, draconian, and plain idiotic policy of charging a ton of money for the privilege of obtaining a press pass. This means that we didn’t get one of the early release visors and instead had to wait. That turned out OK as Bell was kind enough to send two of the visors since we have a Star and Vortex and we didn’t want to change them back and forth; hey we’re lazy and we’re OK with that. Now, I wear Rx glasses so for me to use a clear visor means I have to keep a glasses case somewhere on me in case it gets dark when I’m out. I hate having something bulky like that in my pocket so I usually just wear a dark tinted visor when I ride. This has left me riding with the visor open on those occasions when I forget to bring a clear visor with me and darkness catches me out. Not only is this uncomfortable but it is also unsafe as all kinds of happy little bugs and other small objects can, and do, fly into your eyeballs.  The Transitions Optical SolFX visor alleviates that from ever happening again. The SolFX visors change from clear to a medium smoke tint pretty quickly (depending on the amount of UV rays and the strength of the available light); the quickest I timed being clear to full tint in just under 30 seconds when exposed to midday sunlight. They also block 100% of UVA and UVB rays so no damage is being done to your eyes and visual acuity is increased due to greater contrast.The change is so seamless that it is hard to tell when the shield actually darkens until you realize that you aren’t squinting like you should be. The reason it so hard to detect (unless you are looking for it) is that the visor doesn’t just go from clear to full tint but instead transitions smoothly between those two extremes depending upon the amount of light. Since the SolFX visors depend upon the amount of sunlight (measured in UV rays) to dictate how much or how little tinting is needed, morning or late afternoon sun can sometimes catch the SolFX out. There isn’t quite enough light to keep the visor tinted all the time so when you do turn your head (or the road curves) toward the east or west, the SolFX visor isn’t tinted. So even though you are getting blinded by the sun, the SolFX visor doesn’t tint very much. Bell claims that the SolFX visors are treated with the Bell Nutrafog II to resist fogging and scratching. While I haven’t scratched the visor (fingers crossed) I have noticed that it does seem to fog up a little easier than a “normal” visor in high humidity conditions. Really though, this is the only downside to a visor that allows you to pretty much trash both your tinted visors and clear visors. Of course some will find the price tag of the SolFX visor to be another downside as $119.99 isn’t cheap by any stretch. Again though, you get one visor, that is just about optically perfect, can do the job of two (or more) visors, and you don’t have to go through the hassle of changing out visors or riding around in the dark. Sounds fair to me. You can read more about the visors at http://www.bellpowersports.com/main.html And for far more technical specs try browsing around on the Transitions Optical pages: http://www.transitionssolfx.com/road.aspx
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| Last Updated on Tuesday, 01 March 2011 15:42 |
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